Recipes

“I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but caring little for it, and even less for my imperfect garden”

Of course, this wont happen, I’ll just fall over into a puddle of compost tea, coffee clutched and unspilt.

COMPOST TEA

Anything vegetative + water. I’ve unearthed a large plastic garbage bin with lid which I use to throw weeds into, especially “triangular onion weed” and other such undesirables. Having perfected the art of slackarse gardening, I usually forget to put the lid on until after it rains and a dark liquid is forming and starting to get a tad whiffy. Then I remember the lid.

I have an enormous amount of composting material available and once one bin fills up, I start on another, generally leaving each a month or so in summer, sometimes all season over winter. It eventually breaks down into a very unsavoury dark gloop that i then water down – about a cup to a 9 litre bucket. I have no reason for this amount, it just seems good. Experiment and see what your plants like.

I have found that a brew composed of a lot alliums (the aforementioned onion weed) appears to deter cabbage white butterfly. Or coincided this year with a lack of the same.

SEED-RAISING and POTTING MIXES

Soil+sand. Here’s a jpg of some information I’ve gardenered along the ways. There’s also a pdf of the same in the Library

TONICS – not gin and.

If it’s good for you, it’s good for the garden! Why not have a Happy Hour with your plants

Tim Entwisle (Gardening Australia: A Change of Seasons) suggests we adopt at least 5 seasons, such is the variability of the Australian climate from region to region. he speaks from Sydney to Jane Edmanson:

“There’s an early spring, which I call Sprinter – August and September, there’s a Sprummer which comes after that for 2 months – October and November. There’s a long summer which goes right from December through to March, a short autumn, a short winter – both just two months long and then you’re back at Sprinter.”

He explains what he means by Sprinter. “Spring in Australia, particularly in southern Australia, comes a bit earlier – it comes in about August. That’s really when we start to see things flowering. It’s the time of year we see change.”

“Sprummer is a season between Sprinter – this early spring – and summer, but it’s a changeable season. One of the interesting things with Sprummer is that it’s quite windy in lots of parts of Australia, you get hot weather and cold weather. It’s a really transition time between Sprinter and Summer.”